‘Third-class’ Slovak Roma and inclusion: Bricoleurs vs social engineers

This article addresses social inclusion/integration with reference to peripheral Slovak Roma. Based on ethnographic data, it argues that even in communities of so-called ‘unadaptables’, integration has progressed considerably, but not necessarily along the lines envisioned by the agencies which are propelling ‘Roma inclusion’ as a pan-European project. The article considers early motherhood, juvenile prostitution and unconventional municipal politicians as examples of bottom-up inclusion efforts that don’t threaten traditional notions of cultural and political autonomy.     

Reading Kafka Visually: Gothic Ornament and the Motion of Writing in Kafka’s Der Process

Through close examination of the chapter ‘Im Dom’ in Kafka’s novel Der Process, this articles explores how a particular visual mode can shape the writing of a text. The mode analysed here inheres in the setting of Kafka’s chapter: the architecture of the Gothic cathedral, which the art historian Wilhelm Worringer, a contemporary of Kafka’s, saw embodied in the figure of ornament. This encounter between literary language and Gothic space as two phenomena mutually engendering each other opens a perspective onto the ‘motion of writing’ within the text, and onto its visuality and resonance with space. A dynamic and complex current; a chaotic tangle of lines; expression prevailing over meaning; an absent centre; vertigo and pathos — these are the principles shared by Worringer’s Gothic and Kafka’s writing.     

"A matter of physical health and strength”: disciplining the female body and reproducing the Czech national community in the mid-nineteenth century

An 1850 article “Uzavírání sňatku” (“Marriage”) by Czech physician Jan ?pott outlined the requirements for those who considered themselves part of the Czech national community. ?pott stressed that those concerned with the future national existence had to educate themselves and each other to create healthy offspring. I examine ?pott’s article with regard to contemporary ideas about fitness, the role of women, the need to discipline the female body, as well as the importance of education in reproducing the community. This article’s analysis - set in the broader context of the history of women, medicine, and nationalisms - shows that nation-oriented education could be perceived as a way to ensure the nation’s future existence while simultaneously emphasizing the responsibility of individuals, and particularly women, for the reproduction of the community. ?pott’s propositions are significant to other nineteenth-century national movements and to postnational contexts where national fitness is a concern.